New boss at Casinos Austria

Casinos Austria AG announced a change in the management position in a press release. Bettina Glatz-Kremsner, currently still in office boss of Casinos Austria AG, does not extend her contract with the company. The CEO of Holland Casinos – Erwin van Lambaart will take over from April 1, 2023.

Good news for the group after negative headlines

Casinos Austria AG – Casag for short – has been making headlines again and again in the past few months, but not positive. For example, rumors on the appointment of a new financial manager – Peter Sidlos. This belongs to the FPÖ and therefore caused some discussions and negative headlines. Especially because at that time there was supposedly no tender for the post. This is exactly why the appointment of the new managing director had to be transparent and international. After the evaluation of several national and international candidates, the decision was made to the Dutch van Lambaart. According to the courier, he is said to have prevailed against two other candidates.

Difficult search for successors

The search for a successor for Glatz-Kremsner was difficult because the successor had to have good knowledge of American and also experience in the gambling industry. A connection to politics also had to be excluded in any way. Van Lambaart has been CEO at Holland Casino since 2016, a state gambling company in the Netherlands with 14 locations and 3,500 employees. Previously, he worked as a producer in some other companies. Now he was selected as the new head of Casag by the nomination committee. Christine Catasta from ÖBAG, Pavel Saroch and Rober Chvatal from Sazka were responsible for this. It was a unanimous decision according to which the nominee said:

“I thank you for the trust that I am shown by the supervisory board and the owner. Casinos Austria enjoys an excellent reputation in the international gambling industry, which we will expand together with the managers and the employees in the coming years. ”

He also stated that he would be great pleasure to live and work in Austria in the future. Together with the employees, he wanted to make a sustainable contribution to the well -being of the corporate groups in these challenging times. The future CEO of Casag will move to Vienna with his family. However, this private change is not the only challenge that comes to Van Lambaart. He takes over the company in a rather turbulent phase.

Turbulent phase due to covid

CASAG’s locations are currently closed until December 12th. Due to the increasing Corona case, the government in Austria has decided on a lockdown. For the time being, this was set to twenty days. However, an extension is not excluded if the desired effect – i.e. the reduction in incidence in Austria – does not occur. So the new CEO can only hope that the Casinos can be reopened until he took office in April.

However, the Dutch is not the only one in such a difficult position. This gives the casino in Velden a new management. Marion Roseder will be the first woman to take on such a post at Casinos Austria AG. The previous managing director Hermann Weissitschs is retiring after led the terrestrial casino in Velden for 38 years. Roseder has been working at Casinos Austria since 2005 and took on various activities. Most recently, she worked last year as the deputy of the director of the Salzburg Casino. But even if the casinos have opened again in April, Van Lambaart will still take over a group that has suffered financially due to the Lockdowns. However, the company could – such as lottery – or above all the Online-Casinos recover from the group quickly.